Convenience has become a major factor influencing the quality of modern-day living. The ever-expanding array of labor-saving devices has taken the drudgery out of our lives, so to further improve our life styles, we turn to items which offer convenience.
The American lifestyle has become ever-hurried as people struggle to keep up with harried work and personal schedules. Out of this frantic pace has emerged a desire not only for labor-saving devices to take the drudgery out of our lives, but also for items which offer us the luxury of convenience.
One such area which is open to improvements in convenience concerns the placement of electrical outlets and switches in our homes. Is there anyone who has not experienced the inconvenience of sitting down in a comfortable chair and reaching up to turn on a light on the end table, only to realize that the outlet to which the lamp is attached has been switched off at a switch on the other side of the room.
Many couples frequently face a similar problem. The bedroom is designed around a large double bed, with a night stand and small reading lamp on each side. One partner goes directly to sleep, while the other stays up to read. The first partner awakes in the middle of the night to find that her spouse has fallen asleep with his light still on. The first partner now has three choices: (1) wake her husband and tell him to turn off the light; (2) crawl over him to turn it off herself; or (3) get out of bed to walk around the room to the other side of the bed to turn off the lamp, and then walk back in the dark and get into bed. None of these options can be considered convenient.
The placement of electrical outlets and switches causes other inconveniences: an appliance which itself has no on/off switch (i.e., electric curlers) is virtually impossible to use in outlets behind heavy furniture such as a dresser, though that may be the most practical place to use the appliance; appliances for room temperature comfort, such as electric space heaters and fans, cannot be operated from the bed, chair or sofa unless they are within arm's reach, which is usually not the best place for optimum enjoyment of such a device.
Similarly, when the phone rings, even if it is right beside a person's chair, if th television or stereo is on, he still has to get up to turn it off before answering the telephone in order to hear the caller. While television sets with remote control offer one solution to this problem, most people cannot afford to buy new television sets solely for such a reason.
Some members for the population have special problems with electrical outlet and switch placements: the sick, disabled, handicapped and/or elderly are often unable to reach the outlets and switches at all; making ordinary wall light switches unsurmountable obstacles, and crawling behind or under furniture to get to outlets unthinkable. In addition, a signal device such as a bell or buzzer may be plugged in one side of the outlet. Small children face similar problems as well as others: for example, wanting to have their bedside lamp left on until they fall asleep, but often being awakened when the parent comes into turn it off.
As is well known in the art to which my invention relates (refer to U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,090,107, 4,011,482, 3,872,319 and 342,549), there have been several devices proposed to control switches or to turn on devices from remote areas, but they do not use switches which reverse the energization status of the load, with the exception of one: U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,107 accomplishes this reversal, but does so through integrated circuits, not relays.